Phoenix-area companies take on role as class sponsors

by Amy B Wang - May. 16, 2012 11:16 PMThe Republic | azcentral.com

In the hallways of the Arizona Charter Academy in Surprise, two small plaques hang on the walls outside the second and fifth grades. They don't announce room numbers or teachers' names. Instead, they indicate the classes are sponsored by businesses: one by a cab company, the other by a bank.

Last year, the K-12 charter school began soliciting local companies to sponsor their classrooms. The pitch: For $2,500 a year, a company receives a plaque and commits to visiting their "adopted" class once a month.

Two companies have signed up so far: Total Transit, the parent company of Discount Cab, which sponsors the school's two fifth-grade classrooms; and National Bank of Arizona, which sponsors second-graders.

The program was the brainchild of Melissa Holdaway, the school's chief operations officer. After the school's second-graders caroled at a West Valley branch of the bank around the holidays, staff asked Holdaway how they could help the students. She immediately saw an opportunity to bolster the school's shrinking budget.

"With the budget cuts that we've all experienced in education over the last three years, I view it as a great way to get the teachers what they need. The money goes right to them," Holdaway said. "It's also for the students to even be somewhat mentored by our community partners."

The school may be one of the first in the country to seek classroom sponsors, according to one expert. While few question whether more money is needed for classrooms, some believe that inviting private businesses inside schools starts down a slippery slope to selling out students. Others, however, see such programs as a creative solution for cash-strapped schools that also brings them closer to their local community.

Long-running debate

The debate over whether to allow corporations to have a presence in schools is not a new one. Notably, Channel One News caused a minor uproar in the early '90s when it entered schools across the country, providing free television sets and VCRs in exchange for airing a short news broadcast -- including two minutes of advertising -- every day.

Two decades later, companies often advertise at school football fields, in gymnasiums and cafeterias, on graduation programs, district websites, school buses and even across lockers. As education budgets continue to dwindle, more schools have turned to outside funding sources, including advertising, to bridge the gap.

Around the Valley, many districts are changing, or at least examining, policies that concern advertising. In April, the Scottsdale Unified School District governing board approved a plan for the district to provide free advertising on its buses for radio or television stations in exchange for advertising Scottsdale schools on radio and TV.

Earlier in the semester, the Kyrene School District in the Southeast Valley hired a full-time sponsorship coordinator, in part as a response to businesses who contacted the district asking how they could help.

"I wouldn't put it as crassly as selling ads," said Nancy Dudenhoefer, a spokesperson for the Kyrene district. "It's about building relationships."

The issue is so new that many districts have not considered it, let alone changed their policies to address sponsorships. Those districts that do have policies regarding advertising said there are general guidelines: Advertisements must not "cause the district to violate and/or conflict with state or federal laws or its board policies, regulations and code of conduct such as the use of drugs, alcohol, weapons and harassment," according to the Peoria Unified School District's policy. Most school officials said that, even with policies in place, advertisements must be judged on a case-by-case basis.

"Every school and every district has to do what's really appropriate for the community in which they live and the community in which they serve," Dudenhoefer said.

'Playing matchmaker'

Phoenix area schools are part of a growing number of districts around the country who are turning to corporations, often through direct advertising, to form partnerships.

"The whole notion of bringing responsible, corporate sponsorships into schools is a new one," said David Voss, a spokesman for a new company called Education Funding Partners. The group, based in Colorado, aims to link Fortune 500 companies with school districts to "create some proposals that are attractive to corporations and districts."

"We're looking way beyond the signage," Voss said. "What we really want to bring is a sponsorship of a program that is really preserved or saved. It might be something as small as an ad in a program or it could be funding a program or (purchasing) equipment in a lab."

There is no up-front cost to school districts, Voss said. Once a corporate sponsor is secured, the school district receives 80percent of the money, and Education Funding Partners keeps 20percent. It's a business model that might have caused the masses to balk a decade ago. However, Voss said he has noticed more willingness for school districts to participate -- as well as for large companies to want to reach out and help -- because of dwindling school budgets.

"We're playing matchmaker," he said.

Education Funding Partners has launched only one pilot campaign, in which CVS pharmacies advertised their flu-shot services in Orange County Public Schools in Florida and Prince William County Public Schools in Virginia, two mammoth districts with nearly 300,000 students combined.

For six weeks, CVS sent fliers home to parents, erected banners at football games, placed window decals in the districts' schools and reminded students to get their flu shots during morning announcements. The schools earned about $20 per student, Voss said, calling the campaign "a triple win."

"It's a win for the students because they get additional resources; it's a win for the schools and districts because they're able to keep programs that otherwise would be cut; and it's a win for the corporate sponsor, because they were able to reach that audience," he said.

Financial impact

Hearing advertising and schools used in the same sentence still causes Josh Golin, the associate director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, to wince. The national coalition has spent more than a decade trying to remove commercialism from schools, a task that becomes more difficult every year.

"We've certainly seen things before with plaques and acknowledgments and naming rights," Golin said. However, he said the Arizona Charter Academy example is unique. "This is the first I've heard about this type of advertising with it coming so blatantly into the classroom, where representatives from a company are actually being integrated into the classroom lessons in exchange for money."

The pitfalls are many, Golin said. Once an ad or corporate sponsorship appears inside a school, it is extremely difficult for a school to appear as if it is not endorsing the product or company, a risk that multiplies should a company ever be associated with questionable activity.

Because of the Internet, the presence of advertising and corporate brands in a child's everyday life are exponentially higher compared to 10 or 20 years ago. Even logging onto Facebook, e-mail or Twitter for five minutes means stumbling upon dozens of ads.

"Given how saturated children are with ads these days, that's all the more reason why they need some space where there are less commercial pressures, where they're not being bombarded with ads," Golin said.

Golin notes that advertising rarely makes that much money when compared with the rest of a district's budget.

"This is not to minimize that any amount of money can help," he said. "But we should be honest about the money that advertising is bringing in. It's not saving dozens of teacher jobs. It's not saving programs. It's usually very little amounts."

Golin urges district officials to ask themselves: What would they do were there not a funding crisis? Corporate contributions in exchange for advertising in schools may result in attractive benefits for a classroom -- but the ethical considerations remain, he said.

"There's a reason schools weren't covered with advertisements 10 years ago, and those reasons still hold," he said.

Benefits, drawbacks

At the Arizona Charter Academy, students don't seem to notice the plaques as they walk by, and teachers and staff seem to have embraced what they stand for.

"When they told us (about the sponsorships), it was definitely unexpected," said Victoria Simmons, a fifth-grade reading and social-studies teacher at the Arizona Charter Academy. Any doubts she might have had about becoming the "Discount Cab fifth grade" faded once the school bought a classroom set of Kindle e-readers, preloaded with new novels.

Were it not for the Kindles, her students would still be sharing weather-beaten copies of Hatchet.

"They're in bad shape," Simmons said, pointing at a row of well-worn books in a metal cabinet as her students quietly flipped through their e-books one recent afternoon.

The students all know the Kindles were a direct result of the school's association with Total Transit. While the students might not notice the plaques on a daily basis, they have all come to know Total Transit general manager Jerry Mullen, who last month brought a signature green Discount Cab. The students oohed and aahed, and asked questions: How did the meter work? What is it like to be a cabdriver?

They're looking forward to the second year of the sponsorship, and Simmons said they plan to buy science lab equipment "that fifth-graders typically don't have" with the extra $2,500.

Both sponsors could have donated money or volunteered. However, they say sponsorship gives them a chance to give back to the community.

"We feel it's very important that we support our communities," said Mullen, who said he met Holdaway through a networking group and asked how he could help the school.

Though the money might not be enough to save a teacher's job or an entire program, it provides a supplement for education that current school budgets can't support, sponsors said.

Heather Akers of the National Bank of Arizona pointed out an example: The second-grade class bought a butterfly garden with the bank's sponsorship. Each student received his or her own larva and watched it hatch into a butterfly, documenting the process in a journal. On a sunny afternoon, the students released them outside, squealing with happiness as 50 butterflies fluttered around them.

"Instead of reading out of the life sciences book, they were able to see it," Akers said.

However, students also receive more exposure to the two company's brands.

In past visits as sponsors, National Bank of Arizona has brought goody bags to the Arizona Charter Academy. Included is a letter to parents on the importance of saving from a young age and a paper bank the students can fill with about $5 worth of quarters. Once full, students are encouraged to stop by the bank and start a minor's saving account.

And while the students are too young to call their own cabs, Total Transit's visits could influence their parents' choices, something the company says may be a sponsor's advantage.

"We talk to the kids, so it gives us a chance to get out into the community to get our name out there as well," Mullen said. "There's some benefits besides being just a donor."

Holdaway said she understands general concerns about associating with an outside company, but likens it to working with volunteers, donors and vendors. Students have exposure to so many brands , and there are always risks to associating with private companies.

"You could say that for any vendor," Holdaway said. "I see them all as community partners, really."

Holdaway said the school's goal is to secure sponsors for every classroom so all receive the additional funding. And they will continue to invite the companies into schools because she believes the benefits outweigh potential harm.

"These partners have a vested interest in our students," Holdaway said. "That's the kind of partnership that we look for. It's not just the money."

Fifth-graders Thomas Hutchinson, 11, and Mia Rivers, 11, use Amazon Kindles at Arizona Charter Academy in Surprise. The Kindles were purchased with money from corporate sponsor Total Transit, parent company of Discount Cab.